You are here

Student Experience Blog: Recreation

Let me just start by saying the C of I Outdoor Program is awesome. They planned and executed an absolutely fantastic spring break trip to Moab. After an extremely long bus ride, we finally arrived in the warm weather and red rocks of Moab. We hurried to set up our tents and get dinner cooking before it got dark (something we didn’t entirely succeed in), and enjoyed a lovely campfire.

No fear, ladies and gentlemen! Like a glorious phoenix, I have arisen from the fiery pit of mid-terms more or less unharmed. I still tend to flinch at loud noises and impending deadlines, but the doctors assure me that that will eventually pass. Maybe.

So as I sit here in the heat of summer, soaking in the sun from the day rafting the river, I realize I only have 25 days left in Bend. It hit me that it will be two and a half months before I come home again, and I had a little bit of a heart attack.

I love where I live. I have traveled a bit, but never longer than 6 weeks away from Bend. But then I thought about how much I need this.

It’s the Monday after Spring Break, but campus is warm and beautiful and it’s good to be back. I’m in my room in Anderson right now, and outside next year’s Sustainability Stewards are getting the garden ready for planting. But even though I’m happy to be back on a green campus and there’s a stack of reading with my name on it, I want to take one last look back at Spring Break. Here’s what I occupied my week with:

For my final spring break of my undergraduate career, I was fortunate enough to be able to go to Zion National Park and Bryce Canyon National Park with The College of Idaho Outdoor Program.

I love spending time in the outdoors and being able to get away from college and the constant stress of senior year. Zion was a great escape to say the least. It was amazingly beautiful, with all kinds of rock formations, arches and testing hikes.

This is my second Winter Term on The College of Idaho campus, so I naively figured going into this January that I'd learned all the most important lessons about this accelerated 4-week period. Then I got back the first day and reminded myself of one very important thing: at C of I, if you're not learning something new or experencing new things every day, then you're doing something very wrong. Just because Winter Term is short doesn't mean there's nothing to be gained from it.

What an adventure I have been on. I have gone not only from one side of the world to another, but from one temperature extreme to another. It is almost surreal to find myself back at C of I for my last few semesters. I am originally from Melbourne, Australia which is quite different to anywhere in Idaho. I take the opportunity to go back home whenever I can afford it, but I always love to go home for Christmas. Christmas in Australia is the opposite of the Christmas experience in America for the main reason that it is summer time in the southern hemisphere.

What can I say. The time since I have last posted has been hectic. Academics, farming, art and work collectively have given me almost no leisure time. Except, art and most of work is leisure time for me. I am lucky in that respect.

I have been shooting interviews of professors so that the marketing department can make a video on what it means to be involved with PEAK in terms of academics. That stuff is currently in the editing room, being edited. (I don't get editors most of the time. They are strange people).